Joseph
Smith was sealed to a number of women who were already married.29 Neither
these women nor Joseph explained much about these sealings, though several women
said they were for eternity alone.30 Other
women left no records, making it unknown whether their sealings were for time
and eternity or were for eternity alone.

There
are several possible explanations for this practice. These sealings may have
provided a way to create an eternal bond or link between Joseph’s family and
other families within the Church.31 These
ties extended both vertically, from parent to child, and horizontally, from one
family to another. Today such eternal bonds are achieved through the temple
marriages of individuals who are also sealed to their own birth families, in
this way linking families together. Joseph Smith’s sealings to women already
married may have been an early version of linking one family to another. In
Nauvoo, most if not all of the first husbands seem to have continued living in
the same household with their wives during Joseph’s lifetime, and complaints
about these sealings with Joseph Smith are virtually absent from the
documentary record.32

These
sealings may also be explained by Joseph’s reluctance to enter plural marriage
because of the sorrow it would bring to his wife Emma. He may have believed
that sealings to married women would comply with the Lord’s command without requiring
him to have normal marriage relationships.33 This
could explain why, according to Lorenzo Snow, the angel reprimanded Joseph for
having “demurred” on plural marriage even after he had entered into the
practice.34 After
this rebuke, according to this interpretation, Joseph returned primarily to
sealings with single women.

Another
possibility is that, in an era when life spans were shorter than they are
today, faithful women felt an urgency to be sealed by priesthood authority.
Several of these women were married either to non-Mormons or former Mormons, and
more than one of the women later expressed unhappiness in their present
marriages. Living in a time when divorce was difficult to obtain, these women
may have believed a sealing to Joseph Smith would give them blessings they
might not otherwise receive in the next life.35

The
women who united with Joseph Smith in plural marriage risked reputation and
self-respect in being associated with a principle so foreign to their culture
and so easily misunderstood by others. “I made a greater sacrifice than to give
my life,” said Zina Huntington Jacobs, “for never anticipated again to be
looked upon as an honorable woman.” Nevertheless, she wrote, “I searched the
scripture & by humble prayer to my Heavenly Father I obtained a testimony
for myself.”36 After
Joseph’s death, most of the women sealed to him moved to Utah with the Saints,
remained faithful Church members, and defended both plural marriage and Joseph.

The explanation from
Wilford Woodruff’s perspective follows in context:

THE POWER OF ELIJAH

The first divine
instruction Joseph received following the 1820 appearance of God and Jesus
Christ was in 1823. When Moroni visited Joseph he repeated the
prophecy of Malachi regarding the mission of Elijah and its
importance. However, it would take twenty-one years for the necessary elements
to be revealed before Joseph understood and could teach the Saints about their
vital role in God’s plan of salvation to connect parents and children.[1] The
restoration of the priesthood and conferral of the priesthood
keys had to come before the ordinances that would be revealed could be
administered with the proper authority. The conversion and gathering of enough
Saints prepared to receive the ordinances had to be accomplished. Then temples
had to be built before those who had received the ordinances for themselves
could officiate by proxy for their loved ones.

By July 1843 there was no
doubt that Joseph understood the significance of the sealing power. God clearly
stated that the keys and power of the priesthood had been conferred upon
Joseph Smith, and through this priesthood power would come the
restoration of all things.[2] On
March 10, 1844, Wilford recorded what he called “one of the most important
and interesting subjects ever presented to the Saints.”[3] On
this occasion Joseph Smith explained the spirit and power of
Elijah to the Saints. He told them that, holding the keys of the
fulness of the Melchizedek Priesthood, they could receive and perform all the
ordinances belonging to the kingdom of God.[4] In
response to the question, “What is this office and work of Elijah?” Joseph
stated, “It is one of the greatest and most important subjects that God has
revealed.”[5] He
then told the Saints to “Go and seal on earth your sons and daughters unto
yourself and yourself unto your fathers in eternal glory.”[6]

In two short years, Joseph
had progressed from teaching that baptism was sufficient to bind the fathers
and children together, to learning that it was possible to seal
individuals to each other on both sides of the veil and thus fulfill
Elijah’s mission to connect families eternally. His understanding of God’s plan
made clear that together with their descendants and ancestors, the Saints could
be exalted and blessed with eternal increase, and eternal lives. He told the
Saints that this restoration of the ancient order of things was what would
reconcile the scriptural truths, justify the ways of God, and harmonize every
principle of justice and righteousness.[7] In
April 1844 Joseph declared, “The greatest responsibility in this world
that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead. . . . [F]or it
is necessary . . . that those who are going before and those who come
after us should have salvation in common with us.”[8]

SEALING FAMILIES

This expansion of
ordinances applied not only to the Saints’ progenitors, but to their
descendants as well. In 1843 Joseph Smith had reassured the Saints that
children would not be lost in death, but would be saved by virtue of the
covenants of their fathers and mothers. In a sermon given on August 13, 1843,
Joseph explained, “When a seal is put upon the father and mother, it secures
their posterity.”[9] Thus
it was not necessary for children to participate in the sealing ordinance if
their parents had been sealed; the children would be heirs to the sealing
blessings through their parents’ sealing.

As comforting as this
revelation was, it represented a limited application of the sealing power;
the sealing blessings only extended from parents to children. It was not until
1844 that Joseph made it clear that the sealing power was not confined to the
living—only binding children through their parents’ sealing—but extended from
children to deceased parents through the veil between earth and heaven.

Wilford later
acknowledged that the principle of sealing and the linking of all dispensations
was on Joseph’s mind “more than most any other subject that was given to him.”[10] He
said, Joseph was “wound up with this work,” but he did not live long enough to
“enter any further upon these things.”[11] Although
Joseph taught the Saints to have their children sealed to them and to be sealed
to their fathers, Joseph did not officiate in any family or multigenerational
sealings before his death. It was not until the Nauvoo Temple was
dedicated in December 1845 that the first child-to-parent sealings were
performed under the direction of Brigham Young.[12] Then
children, born before their parents had been sealed to each other and their
marriage recognized by God, could be sealed to their parents.[13]

Another sealing ordinance
that Joseph Smith alluded to but did not live long enough to explain or
administer was what became known as “priesthood adoption.”[14]

HEIRS OF THE PRIESTHOOD

In 1832, the Lord had
revealed through Joseph Smith that all those who receive the fulness of
the priesthood are promised sanctification and all that the Father has.[15] In
this same revelation—now contained in Section 84 of the Doctrine and
Covenants—the Lord explained that those who obtained the priesthood would
become the sons of Moses and part of a patriarchal priesthood chain from
Moses through Abraham back to Adam.[16] If
they were true to the oath and covenant of the priesthood, they would have
the ability to claim the same blessings promised to the children of
Israel as the seed of Abraham.[17]

In August 1843, Joseph
taught of the relationship of the sealing powers to the “doctrine of election
with the seed of Abraham.” In one discourse Joseph said the sealing of fathers
and children would be “according to the declarations of the prophets.”[18] In
a second discourse he explained that the priesthood was directly from God, “not
by descent from father or mother.”[19] The
Saints thus needed to seal the patriarchal chain of priesthood back to Adam—who
received the priesthood directly from God.[20] Joseph
promised the Saints that when they finished the temple they would “receive more
knowledge” concerning the patriarchal priesthood.[21]

Most converts to the Church
residing in Nauvoo were not only the first generation of their family within
the Church, they were the only generation of their family within the Church.
Many were adults who had been forced to leave family behind to join the Saints
and did not anticipate ever having family members within the Church on earth to
whom they could be sealed. Without parents who were able to participate in the
sealing ordinance to link the generations, they were afraid they would be left
without a priesthood connection to the family of God.

Similarly, married converts
who joined the Church, but had spouses who did not join, could not be sealed to
each other and, consequently, could not have their children sealed to them.
There were also few men who had been ordained to the priesthood, and even fewer
who had received all the temple ordinances. Only those men who had been
ordained, washed, anointed, endowed, and sealed had the “fulness of the
priesthood” required to be a part of the patriarchal priesthood chain.

The conundrum was solved in
part through the law of adoption, which linked non-relatives together if
traditional family ties had been severed. Adoption ceremonially created
father-child priesthood relationships for those who had no biological father
within the Church to connect to. The practice of adoption also alleviated
the concern that, if the Saints’ ancestors did not accept the gospel in the
spirit world, the Saints would not have a connection to the family of God. In
addition, adoption to priesthood leaders, rather than relatives, allowed
individuals to be sealed into a priesthood line when fathers or husbands
appeared unworthy to lead their families to salvation and exaltation.

Being sealed, through
marriage or by adoption, to a worthy man ordained to the Melchizedek
Priesthood was vital to the Saints’ eternal membership in the kingdom of
God. During Joseph Smith’s lifetime the only sealings into priesthood lineage
were of women. (Men were not adopted into the priesthood lineage of other men
until the Nauvoo Temple was completed.) Understandably, women desired to be
sealed to one holding a high priesthood office hoping that it would be an
indication of the man’s faithfulness.

At least ten women in
Nauvoo chose to be sealed to Joseph Smith spiritually (for eternity, not
mortality) in order to be connected to his priesthood lineage, yet remained
physically with their husbands.[22] Some
of these women – Ruth Vose Sayers, Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, and perhaps
Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland – were married to men who supported the
Church but were not baptized members. Others – Sylvia Sessions Lyon, Patty
Bartlett Sessions, Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes, and Zina Diantha Huntington
Jacobs – were married to men who were members of the Church but were not Church
leaders. One, Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde, was the wife of an apostle. Joseph’s
assurance to these women was that being sealed to him for eternity and
adopted into his priesthood line would assure their own
exaltation and benefit their husbands and children as well. After Joseph
Smith’s death, five more women chose to be sealed to their husbands for
mortality only and to Joseph for eternity.

The application of these sealing
principles, and the ability to receive the ordinances required for
exaltation hinged on the Saints’ ability to administer the ordinances. On
March 4, 1844, with an unending list of concerns ranging from poverty to mob
violence, Joseph set the priorities when he told the Twelve “we need the
Temple more than anything else.”[23] Three
months later, the exterior walls of the temple were only partially completed when
he and his brother Hyrum were murdered.[24] Joseph
did not live to administer any sealing ordinances within the temple.

UNLOCKING THE HEAVENS

Wilford met Joseph
Smith in 1834 and over the course of their eleven-year association he
gained an unshakable testimony of Joseph’s role as a prophet who communicated
revealed truths.[25] From
1834 to 1844 Wilford was a witness to the doctrines revealed
to Joseph that moved the Saints forward in their understanding of God’s
plan. He could not have imagined that forty-five years after Joseph’s death he
would stand as the prophet of a new generation with the keys to unlock the
heavens.

As prophet, Wilford relied
on continuing revelation. Staying true to the purity of the restored
gospel while being open to continual refinements and even corrections was
a responsibility he understood well. He had witnessed Joseph’s adaptation to
circumstances, such as the revelation on baptism for the dead. The initial
revelation did not include practical details. The instructions on whether
baptisms could be performed in the local river and streams changed once
the temple font was prepared. The necessity of proper record keeping and the
importance of witnesses were subsequently revealed, as was the need for women
to act as proxies for women, and men for men.[26]
In 1857 Wilford reflected on these events and explained, “All was not
revealed at once, but the Lord showed the Prophet a principle, and the people
acted upon it according to the light which they had.”[27]

DO
EXACTLY WHAT GOD SAID

Wilford approached
changes in temple practices in the 1890s with the same matter-of-fact
acknowledgment that the Saints were doing the best they could with the
information they had at the time. Wilford described his perspective
on the unfolding of gospel principles and doctrines this way: “When a boy
begins his education at school he begins at the first rudiments, and continues
to progress step by step. It is so with the student in the study of the
everlasting Gospel. There were not many principles revealed to us when we
first received it, but they were developed to us as fast as we were capable of
making use of them.”[28]

Although Joseph
Smith had been taught about Elijah’s mission in 1823 and began sealing
couples in the 1840s, fifty years passed before the Saints had the
experience necessary to understand the next step. It took time for them to
raise or convert families who were prepared to enter the temples, and for those
Saints to then vicariously baptize, ordain, and endow generations on the other
side of the veil. The multigenerational growth of the Church was the final
element needed to fulfill the instruction Joseph Smith had received
seventy-one years earlier.

In April 1894 Wilford received
the revelation on the law of adoption which led to a complete
restructuring of the sealing ordinances. During the General Church Conference
he shared the revelation with the Saints. Rather than adoption into
the priesthood lineage of Church leaders, Wilford told the Saints to seal
children to parents, and parents to grandparents. “Then,” he explained, “you
will do exactly what God said when He declared He would send Elijah the
prophet in the last days.”[29] With
this pronouncement, Wilford expanded and extended the scope of temple
ordinance work and changed the sealing practices that had been taught in the
Church since the Nauvoo period.

Wilford received this
revelation almost twenty-two hundred years after Malachi recorded his
prophecy regarding the sealing powers of Elijah and seventy years after
Elijah’s mission to connect the generations of the children of God was
explained to Joseph Smith. However, the concepts that Joseph had introduced in
the months before his death were subsequently interpreted and instituted by
Brigham Young and John Taylor according to the understanding they had
at the time. Wilford told the Saints that he, Brigham Young, and John
Taylor felt “there was more to be revealed on the subject.”[30]

For the fifty years
preceding Wilford’s 1894 revelation, there had been three types of sealing
ordinances: the sealing of couples, the sealing of children to their parents,
and sealings into another man’s priesthood lineage, known as adoptions.
Wilford’s concerns and inquiries regarding these practices led to the
revelation in 1894 and the changes he understood were necessary to
correctly implement God’s will. Only then could family units be created
generation upon generation through the sealing power, and links in the eternal
family chain be properly connected. When Wilford acknowledged in 1857 that the
“full particulars of this order” were not revealed until after the days of
Joseph Smith, he told the Saints this showed an advance in building the
kingdom and proved the importance of continuing revelation.[31] His
statement foreshadowed the fact that he was not only a witness to the
incremental development of temple ordinances and practices over the course of
nineteenth-century Church history, he was also the instrument through which
many revealed changes were made.[32]

Understanding the
development of Church doctrine and practices regarding the sealing ordinances
from 1844 to 1894 is key to comprehending the impact of the
revelation Wilford received. During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, although
he taught the concept of an unbroken patriarchal priesthood chain spanning the
dispensations and discussed the need for children to be sealed to their
parents, he only officiated in the ordinance of sealing men and women as
couples.[33] There
are no records of any priesthood adoptions or child-to-parent
sealings before he was killed in June 1844. It was only after Joseph’s
death, when the Nauvoo Temple was sufficiently completed in 1845, that
Brigham Young began sealing children to parents and initiated
the first adoptions of men into the priesthood lineage of other men.

When the Endowment
House was constructed in Salt Lake City in 1855, only endowments and
marriage sealings were performed there; priesthood sealings or
adoptions and the sealing of children to parents would not be allowed
until the St. George Temple was dedicated.[34] In
January 1856, Brigham gave what Wilford called “one of the greatest
sermons he had ever delivered on earth.”[35] Wilford recorded
Brigham’s counsel on families, ordinances, and covenants, among other things.
In his discourse Brigham called priesthood adoptions “the highest
ordinance,” and “the last ordinance of the Kingdom of God on the earth.”[36] He
told the Saints that priesthood adoptions represent a final sealing and
were “above all the endowments that can be given you.”[37]

Yet, in 1862, Brigham referred
to adoption as the “principle that has not been named by me in years.” He
told the Saints that although priesthood adoption was a glorious doctrine,
and they needed to complete the unbroken chain of the priesthood from
Adam to the latest generation, the Saints were not ready for it.[38] He
then explained he had received revelation on “how to organize this people
so that they can live like the family of heaven,” but could not carry it out
“while so much selfishness and wickedness reign in the Elders of Israel.”[39] His
reluctance was due to the unsuccessful attempt to use priesthood
adoption as an organizational tool in the exodus from Nauvoo.

Five years later, in
Brigham Young’s remarks to the Saints gathered in the Tabernacle, he wondered
out loud, “Will the time ever come that we can commence and organize this
people as a family? It will. Do we know how? Yes; what was lacking in these
revelations from Joseph to enable us to do so was revealed to me. Do you think
we will ever be one? When we get home to our Father and God will we not wish to
be in the family? Will it not be our highest ambition and desire to be reckoned
as the sons of the living God, as the daughters of the Almighty . . . ?”[40]

Accordingly, as the
construction of the temple progressed in St. George, Church leaders began to
encourage the Saints to prepare themselves for the ordinances of sealing and
adoption that they would finally be able to administer.[41] Wilford’s
discourses through the years maintained this central theme: that God had raised
them up in the last dispensation to carry on His work; His work would be
accomplished through the priesthood; and God had given the Saints “the
kingdom and the keys thereof.”[42] He
pleaded with the Saints not to disappoint God or neglect the things of eternal
life for earthly pursuits. He then told the men that one thing—making it possible
for their wives and children to dwell with them in the presence of God—would
amply pay them for “the labors of a thousand years.” Finally he asked, “What is
anything we can do or suffer, to be compared with the multiplicity of kingdoms,
thrones and principalities that God has revealed to us?”[43]

ADOPTIONS
IN THE ST. GEORGE TEMPLE

After the
completion of the St. George Temple in 1877, the ordinance of adoption was
reintroduced and practiced in conjunction with sealings of husbands to wives,
and children to parents, for both the living and dead. Wilford performed
the first adoption in the St. George Temple on March 22, 1877, and began
having others adopted to him shortly thereafter.[44] By
1885 his journal record shows that forty-five persons had been adopted to
him. Between 1877 and 1894 he officiated in the adoptions of ninety-six
men to other priesthood holders.[45]

Sealing the marriages of
deceased husbands and wives was also done in the St. George Temple. However, widows
who had been married to non-members or “unworthy” husbands were counseled to be
sealed to living priesthood holders, rather than take the risk that their
deceased husbands might not accept the gospel or be valiant in the spirit
world.[46] Depending
on their ages and temporal needs, the sealings were either considered adoption
into a man’s priesthood line or resulted in plural marriage relationships.
The children, if any, were sealed rather than adopted to the new husband,
and the deceased spouse was then adopted as a child as well, in order to
ensure his connection to the family’s priesthood line.[47]

BORN
UNDER THE COVENANT

Because
adoption was a sealing ordinance, the two terms were used almost
interchangeably. The difference was determined by biological relationships in
some cases, and the distinction was made based on when parents were
endowed and sealed. In answer to the question, “How many children are
entitled to the blessings of Abraham?” Wilford recorded Brigham’s counsel.
Brigham had explained that all children who are born after their parents have
been endowed and sealed are entitled to those blessings. Children born
before their parents’ sealing would need to be adopted to their parents.
He encouraged all who want the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to get
their endowments before getting married. “Then,” he assured them, “all your
children will be heirs to the Priesthood.”[48]

After waiting for
thirty-one years, children—born before their parents’ marriage was
sealed—could be sealed to their parents in the St. George Temple. Wilford and
Phebe’s first child Sarah, who died as a child prior to their sealing in
1843, was sealed to them by proxy on November 9, 1881.[49] Children
whose deceased parents were not members of the Church were adopted to a
priesthood holder. This alleviated the concern over the worthiness of
deceased parents, particularly those who had been adamantly opposed to their
child’s affiliation to the Church when they were alive. For this reason, the
practice of adoption to living and deceased Church leaders—rather than
parents for whom ordinances had been performed by proxy—continued.

MORE TO
BE REVEALED

Even
though the practice of priesthood adoption continued under Wilford’s
leadership as President of the St. George Temple, it was something that
concerned him. Wilford’s own reticence is evidenced by the fact that he waited
eighteen years after the reintroduction of the adoption ordinance in 1877 to
have members of his family adopted to Joseph Smith.[50] When
the Logan and Manti temples began operating in the 1880s and the Salt Lake
Temple was finally completed in 1893, the implications of the practice
became more troublesome to Wilford as President of the Church. Those,
including Wilford, who had traced their family history back many
generations wanted to seal or adopt their family members so their place in the
family of God would be secured.

In 1891 Edward Bunker Sr., a good friend of
Wilford’s and a former Bishop in the St. George Stake, wrote a letter
detailing his concerns regarding the practice of adoption (among other things)
to the Stake leadership. Edward did not believe there was a man on earth that
thoroughly understood the principle of adoption, or at least he had never been
taught it in a way he could understand. He wrote, “I believe it is permitted
more to satisfy the minds of the people for the present until the Lord reveals
more fully on the principle.”[51]

Edward Bunker’s sentiments echoed those of Brigham
Young spoken in 1846, almost fifty years earlier. At that time Brigham had
explained that the law of adoption was “a schoolmaster to bring them back into
the covenant of the Priesthood” and he was aware that it was “not clearly
understood by many” at that time. Brigham then confessed that even he “had only
a smattering of those things,” but was sure that more would be revealed.[52]

Based on Wilford’s own
concerns, and perhaps those expressed by others through the years, he sought
additional revelation on the sealing ordinances. In his April 1894 Conference
address, Wilford confirmed Brigham’s statement. He told the Saints that,
although they had been acting according to all the light and knowledge they
had, “I have not felt satisfied, neither did President Taylor, neither has any
man since the Prophet Joseph who has attended to the ordinance of
adoption in the temples of our God. We have felt that there was more to be
revealed upon the subject than we had received.”[53] Wilford explained
that he and his counselors had prayed over the matter, and he had indeed
received revelation outlining the changes that must be made “in order to
satisfy our Heavenly Father, satisfy our dead and ourselves.”[54]

He then announced that it
was the will of the Lord for the Saints “from this time to trace their
genealogies as far as they can, and to be sealed to their fathers and
mothers.”[55] He
also said that the Saints should have children sealed to their parents, and
“run this chain through as far as you can get it.”[56] This
meant they would be connecting the generations by strengthening natural ties
instead of creating convoluted links.

Recognizing the simplicity
of the revelation, Wilford reflected on the commencement of the practice
of adoption in Nauvoo. Referring to the fact that some men campaigned in an
effort to enlarge their “kingdoms,” he acknowledged that “there was a spirit
manifested by some in that work that was not of God.” Hundreds of men and women
were adopted to men “not of their lineage.” He told the Saints that when he
prayed to know who he should be adopted to, “the Spirit of God said
to me, ‘Have you not a father, who begot you?’ ‘Yes, I have.’ ‘Then why not
honor him? Why not be adopted to him?’ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘that is right.’”[57]

In his remarks, Wilford also
included special instructions to the women of the Church whose
husbands had died without hearing the gospel. In the past, he said, the
request of a woman in this situation who wanted to be sealed to her husband was
denied and she was told she could not be sealed to him.[58] He
continued, “Many a woman’s heart has ached because of this, and as a servant of
God I have broken that chain.”[59] He
did not think it right to deprive a woman of being sealed to her husband
because, he queried, “What do any of us know with regard to him? Will he not
hear the gospel and embrace it in the spirit worlds?”[60]

ONE STEP
IN ADVANCE

Wilford emphasized
that this change in practice was not a new doctrine, but actually based on what
had been revealed to Joseph Smith regarding the mission of Elijah. He
referred to Joseph’s 1842 letter to the Saints when Joseph first said there
must be a welding link between the fathers and the children.[61] Wilford went
on to explain, “I was adopted to my father, and should have had my father
sealed to his father, and so on back; and the duty that I want every man who
presides over a temple to see performed from this day henceforth and forever,
unless the Lord Almighty commands otherwise, is, let every man be adopted to
his father. When a man receives the endowments, adopt him to his father; not to
Wilford Woodruff, nor to any other man outside the lineage of his fathers.
That is the will of God to this people. . . . [L]et every man be
adopted to his father; and then you will do exactly what God said when he
declared he would send Elijah the prophet in the last days. . . .
[T]hen we will make one step in advance of what we have had before. This is the
will of the Lord to this people, and I think when you come to reflect upon it
you will find it to be true.”[62]

The Saints had initially
worried that being sealed to those who had not accepted the gospel on earth,
including their own parents, might put their salvation in jeopardy if those
individuals did not accept the gospel in the spirit world. Wilford’s response to
this concern was three-fold. First he reminded them that “God is no respecter
of persons; he will not give privileges to one generation and withhold them
from another; and the whole human family, from father Adam down to our
day, have got to have the privilege, somewhere, of hearing the Gospel of
Christ; and the generations that have passed and gone without hearing that
Gospel in its fullness, power and glory, will never be held responsible by God
for not obeying it, neither will he bring them under condemnation for rejecting
a law they never saw or understood; and if they live up to the light they had
they are justified so far, and they have to be preached to in the spirit
world.”[63]

Second, he wanted the
Saints to understand it was not the responsibility of the living to judge, but
to do their part in offering the choice by performing the saving ordinances by
proxy for every member of the human family regardless of their perceived
worthiness. To those who asked, “What if these people do not receive the
Gospel?” he answered, “That will be their fault, not mine. This is a duty that
rests upon all Israel, that they shall attend to this work, as far as they have
the opportunity here on the earth.”[64] This,
in Wilford’s view, was what was required of the Saints. The knowledge that all
of the temple ordinances would eventually be performed for all God’s children
changed the Saints’ perspective on the perceived need to be sealed to one of
the leaders of the Church instead of their own fathers and mothers.

Finally, Wilford assured
them that, “There will be very few, if any, who will not accept the Gospel.”[65] Confusion
regarding the status of adoptions to leaders or relatives who subsequently
left the Church was replaced with the understanding that, regardless of their
perceived worthiness or faithfulness on earth, all God’s children should
be given the benefit of the doubt and be included as a link in the eternal
family. Furthermore, the sealing blessings would still be applicable to each
individual who remained worthy of their sealing covenants regardless of the
choices made by others.

Wilford concluded his
remarks by saying, “It is my duty to honor my father who begot me in the flesh.
It is your duty to do the same. When you do this, the Spirit of God will
be with you. And we shall continue this work, the Lord adding light to that
which we have already received. . . . Go and be adopted to your
fathers, and save your fathers, and stand at the head of your father’s house,
as saviors upon Mount Zion, and God will bless you in this.” “This is,” he
continued, “what I want carried out in our temples. I have had a great anxiety
over this matter. I have had a great desire that I might live to deliver these
principles to the Latter-day Saints, for they are true. They are one step
forward in the work of the ministry and in the work of the endowments in
these temples of our God.”[66]

When he reflected on the
history of the Church and the development of his own understanding, he simply
said, “There will be no end to this work until it is perfected.”[67]

George Q. Cannon—his first
counselor in the First Presidency—spoke next and added his testimony in support
of the revealed changes. “[Y]ou can see the advantage of pursuing now the
course that is pointed out by the word of God to us,” he said, “It will make
everyone careful to obtain the connection and to get the names properly of the
sons and daughters of men to have them sealed to their parents. It will draw
the line fairly; it will define lineage clearly.”[68]

THE
FAMILY OF GOD

These
principles are still practiced and believed by Church members: the fulfillment
of the mission of Elijah is to bind families together, to link the
generations, to seal the children to their fathers and the fathers to their
God. All other priesthood ordinances are designed to lead members step by step
toward this ultimate goal of eternal families.

Wilford’s announcement
rewrote the nature of temple ordinances and changed the perspective of the
Saints not only regarding their own parents and grandparents but with regard to
the need to return to the temple again and again. For fifty years, following
the introduction of proxy temple sealings, the Saints were only able to seal
children to parents if the father was ordained to the priesthood.
Therefore, sealings to deceased parents were limited to those who had accepted
the gospel in mortality until proxy ordination began in 1877 in the St. George
Temple. Even then, proxy sealings were only performed for one deceased
generation. Although Church members had collected names of relatives in order
to act as proxy in their baptisms and endowments, they were not able to
organize these relatives into individual family units and perform sealings
generation upon generation.

With the reassurance that
most, if not all, of their family members would accept the gospel in the spirit
world, the Saints were able to move forward. Rather than only performing
ordinances for those they judged worthy or sealing to those they presumed would
accept the gospel, they would leave judgment to God. Following Wilford’s
announcement in 1894, those who had previously sealed fathers to non-relatives
or mothers and their children to priesthood leaders could now make natural
family connections, sealing children to parents through every generation.
By 1897, in the Salt Lake Temple alone, 21,288 couples were sealed by
proxy and 17,936 children were sealed to their parents.[69]

Naturally the Saints
wondered about the validity of the more than 13,000 sealings and
adoptions previously performed between unrelated individuals. The counsel
given was to focus on organizing and sealing generational families, not to
worry about undoing ordinance work previously completed.[70] This
also remains the standard in Church practice regarding proxy ordinance work.
The Saints are counseled to do their best research and record keeping and rest
assured that the validity of all ordinances will be determined “beyond the
veil.”[71] Ultimately
it is up to each individual, because all must “qualify themselves” for and
accept the saving and exalting ordinances performed in their behalf.[72]

THEY
SHALL LEARN WISDOM

Throughout
the history of the Church, whenever changes occurred in the temple ordinances
or the Church organization, some questioned why these things were not perfected
in the beginning. To those who wondered, and those who still wonder, the Lord
responds: “I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon
precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken
unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom;
for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We
have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.”[73]

In Wilford’s May 1894
address he made it clear that God would continue to guide the work of the
Church, particularly in relation to the temples: “I want to say, as the
president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that we should
now go on and progress. We have not gotten through with revelation. We have not
gotten through with the work of God. But at this period we want to go on and
fulfill this commandment of God given through Malachi—that the Lord should send
Elijah the prophet.”[74] Wilford explained
that although Brigham Young accomplished all that God required at his
hands, he did not receive all the revelations that belong to this work;
neither did John Taylor nor had Wilford as prophet. Wilford then
concluded, “There will be no end to this work until it is perfected.”[75]

Thus he reminded the
Saints that prophets and revelation were still a vital part of the
progress of God’s work, that although Joseph Smith had been inspired to
lay a firm foundation before his death in 1844, God would work through His
subsequent prophets to continue perfecting the Church structure built on that
foundation. Wilford’s devotion to Joseph and deference to his predecessors did
not prevent him from believing that God had yet to reveal many great and
important things pertaining to His Kingdom.[76]